NEWARK — They met when their collective wounds were so fresh, the pain had not yet come, like that numbing instant between the cut, and when blood surfaces to the skin.

"It was at the medical examiner’s office on Norfolk Street and South Orange Avenue," James Harvey said. "We had to go to the morgue to see our kids. That was the first time most of us met."

The families of Terrance Aeriel, Dashon Harvey and Iofemi Hightower, who were shot on the playground of Mount Vernon School in August, 2007, have been together ever since.

"Through all the funerals, and the prayer vigils, and the Save Our Streets rallies and anti-violence marches, and now the trials, we’ve been there for each other," Harvey said. "We’re a family now."

A family 30 people strong, some of whom have never missed a day in court, from arraignments to pre-trial hearings to trials. A family that shares the collective grief of not only losing a child to violence, but having to endure the details of their last moments, over and over.

As a family, they’ve sat through hours of testimony, including survivor Natasha’s Aeriel’s horrific account of the night her brother and best friend, Iofemi Hightower, were killed. They’ve seen crime scene photos and autopsy photos. They have seen the machete used to hack Iofemi Hightower entered into evidence. Same for the gun used to shoot all four students, execution style.

They’ve sat though hours of stupefyingly boring legal arguments and attorney machinations. In this latest trial, they waited four days for a verdict. Four days of hoping and wondering. When the verdict came in, they had to wait for one alternate juror to come out of the bathroom for the verdict to be read. When it was over, it still wasn’t over. Defense attorney Raymond Morasse exercised his right to have Judge Michael L. Ravin poll the jury individually. The judge read all 17 charges to all 16 jurors who sat through deliberations to affirm their decision. It took 45 minutes.

"I’m going to see it all, right through to the end," Shalga Hightower, mother of Iofemi, said at the end of the day.

"We’ll be here until we receive absolute justice," said James Harvey, father of Dashon.

As a family, they rallied around Shalga Hightower during this trial because defendant Alexander Alfaro was accused of bringing the machete to the schoolyard and hacking her daughter. As the guilty verdict was read Tuesday, Hightower rocked nervously, as James Harvey, seated behind her, massaged her shoulders, trying to calm her. Tissue boxes came at her from every direction. The blood drained from her face and the tears fell freely as the words "guilty" came repeatedly, charge after charge, from the jury foreman. When those words followed the murder charges surrounding the death of Iofemi Hightower, tears came to the eyes of everyone around her.

"She’s been our strength through this," Harvey said. "This was her turn. We had to be there for her."

In the first trial almost a year ago, the families rallied around Natasha Aeriel, who survived the attack despite a gun wound to the head, and testified against Rodolfo Godinez, who was convicted on all counts.

"We’re are like a family," said Troy Bradshaw, Natasha’s father and stepfather of Terrance. "I knew the Hightowers before the murders, Natasha and Iofemi were best friends. They went to the prom together in my truck. But we’re closer now. The Harveys, too. This kind of thing brings you together."

Jury reaches a verdict in the Alexander Alfaro case.The jury announced the verdict against Alexander Alfaro at The Essex County Courthouse in Newark.
Alfaro is charged in the Aug. 4, 2007 killing of three college students behind the Mount Vernon School in Newark.
He was found guilty on 16 of the 17 counts against him, including the murders of all three victims.

"At Thanksgiving and Christmas time, we’ll get together, and we’ll set plates for our children," Harvey said. The families hold hands, forming bridges over those empty plates, and pray.

On the birthdays, they make trips to the cemeteries where their children are buried.

"Dashon and T.J. (Terrence) are next to each other in Evergreen (in Hillside) and Iofemi’s in Rosemont (in Newark)," Shalga Hightower said. "We’ll go together."